Why is Blake Lively so overrated?

[Anonymous]

From a legal perspective, does it even matter if he harassed her? Is her just saying
she felt uncomfortable (even in hindsight) enough to say he can’t then “retaliate”?

I’m asking because I don’t understand if any of this matters.

[Anonymous]

BL and JB are both so messy. I’m embarrassed for them that this is all being fought so publicly. Neither of them come off as very sympathetic to me. They need to go do private mediation and take a break from the spotlight.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Also, I think that based on Baldoni’s obsequiousness during the filming (He rolled over for her during the filming to avoid antagonizing her), Blake thought he would cower under threats and she would come out on top. Just because someone is deferential at the workplace in order to achieve their aims, does not mean they are fools who won’t fight back when you have them in a corner.

I think this is the right take.

+1. They thought he was a patsy who would rollover, which he pretty much did throughout filming. Blake sounded like a nightmare to manage. But then they started smearing his character and he was not going to have his livelihood and reputation ruined and rightly, fought back. I don't think Blake or Ryan expected that, but their lawyers and PR people should have.

Right, and my question is why their team didn’t anticipate that?

Agree. I really feel like he was pushed into a corner because it was absolutely humiliating for him to be in that basement for the premier. The premier of a film he owned the rights to, that he starred in, directed, and produced.

She knew what she was doing when she and Ryan unfollowed him too. Look at the headlines right now about Justin Bieber unfollowing people. Fans and gossip rags pick up on that instantly.

He probably wouldn’t have done anything, but she so botched the promotion through the whole advertising alcohol, botching interviews, etc. I know people say she followed the marketing plan to make it more of a light movie, but I’m not talking about that. She didn’t have to advertise her and Ryan’s alcohol brands. She didn’t have to launch her hairline. And she didn’t have to come off so poorly in interviews.

There was one where the interviewer ask her, if your fans come up and want to engage with you about the topic of domestic violence what would you do? She went off with really sarcastic comments, basically showing disdain for her fans for trying to stalk her with a bad location sharing joke.

It was really weird and not what the marketing plan likely intended. Her costar Brandon was sitting beside her and looked embarrassed.

She created this huge mess and I think her team was probably desperate to clean it up somehow. I agree that they weren’t thinking clearly or a long-term.

Hmm.

- He wasn't in the basement, he was just in another theater at the same complex. He also walked the red carpet with his family, just not with the rest of the cast because they collectively didn't want him there.

- Unfollowing someone on social media is, in my opinion, a normal thing to do after a personal and professional falling out. Are you saying Lively and her husband were obligated to keep following him so fans wouldn't notice? They aren't.

- I agree she was tone deaf in her promotion of the film. I think this could maybe be a cause of action, but the film was super successful and made a ton of money so there's no harm. I agree she seems like a personally obnoxious person though.

- I am not clear on what "huge mess" she is supposed to have created. From where I sit, they both seem responsible for escalating things instead of working it out privately. I also don't feel I know enough about what happened on set to say definitely "he's right" or "she's right." To the degree there is a mess here (I guess the legal stuff but that could be resolved at any time if they just settle -- professionally the movie was a success) I don't see how it's anymore on her than on him. He hired a PR firm to astroturf against her, he's hired a very aggressive and confrontational lawyer who constantly does interviews and litigates this in the press. Both of those choices have done as much to drag this time that into the public as her leaking the PR firm texts to the NYT or leaking her complaint. No one has clean hands here.

Nope. Team Baldoni all the way.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Also, I think that based on Baldoni’s obsequiousness during the filming (He rolled over for her during the filming to avoid antagonizing her), Blake thought he would cower under threats and she would come out on top. Just because someone is deferential at the workplace in order to achieve their aims, does not mean they are fools who won’t fight back when you have them in a corner.

Isn't it a problem that he "rolled over" for her during filming though? It seems like he really mishandled his position during filming and that goes to her allegation that the set was unprofessionally run.

Being unprofessional isn't illegal and if he was unprofessional by showing too much deference, that hurts her claims overall.

Yeah, I don’t get how he was too accommodating and differential and also sexually harassed her.

My perception of the footage that has been released is that he is not accommodating or deferential, but he communicated poorly and was not direct or authoritative. It's not like he just lets her change the scene so they are talking the whole time -- he doesn't actually engage with her the way she's proposing. He just kind of ignores her suggestions and then argues with her and then goes ahead doing it his way with all the nuzzling/kissing (which only he does).

He just seems like a bad communicator and that will give rise to misunderstandings.

But not sexual harassment. Also, why didn’t she speak up. She never once said she was uncomfortable. Communication works both ways.

She says she has documentation of her raising these issues on several occasions prior to the break in filming during the strike, and then the January meeting where she says these issues were raised and Baldoni and Heath agreed to correct their behavior.

We'll see if the evidence backs that up but she is claiming she raised concerns about feeling uncomfortable on the set and wanting an IC present in numerous occasions.

This was shot in May 2023. But my point is that she didn’t raise any objections in this 10 minute footage. He may not have been communicating great, but she doesn’t seem to be either. The burden should be on both of them to communicate. Also, he laid out what he wanted in the scene. She laid out why she thought it would be more romantic to have them talking, and it seems like they met in the middle. With some moments of them not talking and some moments of them talking. It seems like they both communicated what they wanted if she felt differently, she really needed to speak up.

She did speak up when he said "it smells good." She immediately straightens up and tells him she was talking about her body makeup. It's very clear in context that she did not like what he said and felt it crossed a line.

Saying someone smells good crosses a line and is sexual harassment? lol. This is beyond outlandish. You all are not real people. This is all absurd.

It’s either a troll or Blake pr. No real person could be this illogical, and also committed to posting endlessly on this thread. It doesn’t matter, in the real world, Blake’s case is toast and everyone knows it. Really curious how long it takes The NY Times to hit the escape hatch. And I think it will be a long long time before they publish another story about sexual harassment. We can thank Blake for that.

NP. Way to shift the goal posts. PP says she should have spoken up, so someone points out that she did... now it's "that alone is SH, you must be a troll!" No. PP was pointing out that she did speak up, making it clear she was uncomfortable. If this kind of interaction happened once, it would 100% not be SH. If over and over again he did this and every time she tried to put a stop to it? Of course it would be. Note that I'm not saying that happened, because I have no idea. But my take on this scene is that Blake is clearly uncomfortable from the get go, constantly tries to ramp down the physical/sexual parts of the scene and, when he oversteps line, pushes back. I can absolutely see how your boss doing this repeatedly would create a hostile environment.

Exactly. No one, including Blake Lively, is claiming that Baldoni's behavior in this scene constitutes "harassment."

Her complaint alleges that there were a series of unprofessional, boundary violating behaviors that led Lively to request Baldoni and Wayfarer to agree to a code of conduct before she returned to the set post strike. They did agree, and she returned to the set. Separately, Baldoni hired a PR agency during promotion of the movie to astroturf online message boards and fan sites with negative info about Lively, which she claims is retaliation for her complaining during filming about his behavior.

You can't disprove her entire cause of action by showing a few minutes of footage and saying "see, it looks like she's enjoying it." Especially when to many people, it does NOT look like she's enjoying it, and the footage includes an exchange that is describe accurately in her complaint, in which she felt he crossed a line, and spoke up about it.

Her cause of action is “he crossed my boundary” and yet Baldoni’s team’s point by point refutation is nothing?

“Many people” think she’s “NOT” enjoying it?

Hmmm.

The problem is in one of the examples, the dance scene, she is laughing and smiling at him and does not appear upset about the "boundaries." She came up with that objection later. Unfortunately for her the footage shows the opposite of what she claims. I can't wait to see what else Baldoni releases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the record, here are there complaints. Hers might be technically truthful (but very disingenuous to complain that nothing needed to be said, when she's clearly the one advocating for talking) but it's clear that his is much more honest.

Lively's
32. On another occasion, Mr. Baldoni and Ms. Lively were filming a slow dance scene for a montage in which no sound was recorded. Mr. Baldoni chose to let the camera roll and have them perform the scene, but did not act in character as Ryle; instead, he spoke to Ms. Lively out of character as himself. At one point, he leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, “it smells so good. " None of this was remotely in character, or based on any dialogue in the script, and nothing needed to be said because, again, there was no sound—Mr. Baldoni was caressing Mr. Lively
with his mouth in a way that had nothing to do with their roles. When Ms. Lively later objected to this behavior, Ms. Baldoni's response was, “I'm not even attracted to you."

Baldoni's
89. Lively’s later complaint sheds light on what this point was alluding to in this
demand, which at the time was baffling, and upon review of the filmed evidence, is unequivocally based on a lie. Production was filming a “romance montage” of Lily and Ryle on their date. One of the producers played music to set the mood so the characters could slow dance. Lively, consistently unable to take direction, insisted she really liked the idea of the characters constantly talking, because, as she described, she and her husband like to “keep talking and talking and talking.” Baldoni, her director, and the film’s assistant director (who was directing the scene) disagreed. In an attempt to encourage her to take his direction Baldoni offered up that he and his wife often just look into each other’s eyes silently, to which she responded, “Like sociopaths,” and laughed. Baldoni laughed and shook it off, while Lively once again started talking about how she and her husband can’t not talk. Baldoni said, “I think that’s cute,” and complimented the couple, to which Lively responded, “I think it’s more than cute.”
90. Lively continued arguing and tried to direct him for the scene. while they were
supposed to be in character filming the scene. At some point Heath and another producer, irritated, called Baldoni aside to express they can’t capture the intended “shot” because Lively wouldn’t stop talking. He was instructed to somehow get her to stop. While there was a brief verbal exchange, Baldoni, heeding the instruction of their Assistant Director and producers, continued to try to bring them back into character. As they were acting in this montage scene, Lively continued to break character and speak as herself rather than as Lily, which was extremely confusing for Baldoni, who was trying to balance directing the scene within his artistic vision while also acting in character while filming and trying to get Lively to do the same. Lively apologized for the smell of her spray tan and body makeup. Baldoni responded, “It smells good,” and continued acting, slow dancing as he believed his character would with his partner, which requires some amount of physical touching. Lively took them out of character again and began to joke about Baldoni’s nose, which he laughed off and joked in turn, even as Lively joked that he should get plastic surgery.
16 Lively incorrectly alleges that this scene was filmed without sound. Baldoni was wearing a microphone, and the entire exchange is captured on camera. Any suggestion that this scene was filmed in any manner other than pure professionalism by Baldoni is unequivocally countered with actual evidence. Her allegation of sexual harassment is a documented and knowingly fabricated lie.

Hers is shorter and what she says is accurate except that he doesn't say "it smells so good." He just says "it smells good."

His is longer and has some true context based on the footage, some things it's impossible to verify by viewing the footage (like what was discussed between Baldoni and Heath between takes). However, his complaint also has some factual inaccuracies or is intentionally misleading.

For instance, Lively does not "apologize for the smell of her spray tan and body makeup." She is responding to his comment that he is probably getting his beard all over her, by saying she's probably getting her spray tan all over him. She doesn't mention the smell. Only he does.

Also, he gets the order of things wrong, indicating the conversation about his nose happens after the comment about her body make up. But it happens before.

And the way his complaint frames the issue of whether or not the scene was filmed with sounds seems inaccurate to me. Yes obviously we can see he was mic'ed in the scene and sound was captured. But it is clear that they were not recording audio for purposes of using it in the movie -- they explain in the footage that the dancing will be slo-mo and Lively and Baldoni even comment to each other that "no one will know" what they are saying if they are seen onscreen talking to each other. I took the emphasis on lack of audio in her complaint to highlight that Baldoni does not make the "it smells good" comment in character as part of the scene, but as something he is saying to Lively personally, not as his character.

I think by saying less, her complaint is more accurate than his. I'm on the fence as to whether this incident could contribute to a hostile work environment. It depends on what else happened, how often and in what way Lively complained, how Wayfarer responded, etc. This is really a quick snapshot, not the whole picture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From a legal perspective, does it even matter if he harassed her? Is her just saying
she felt uncomfortable (even in hindsight) enough to say he can’t then “retaliate”?

I’m asking because I don’t understand if any of this matters.

So I’m not fully up on the case law, but in general, no, the underlying harassment claim does not have to be proven in order to give rise to a retaliation claim. The point of retaliation protections is to ensure that people are not dissuaded or punished for complaints. That said, the timeline and other motivations do matter, as does a real absence of merit in her underlying complaint.

I started out with the opinion that the retaliation case is very strong - in general it is really hard for anyone not to retaliate somewhat after being the subject of a complaint, and there are myriad cases where the complaint was weak but the retaliation was strong. But now it looks a LOT more muddy to me. In particular it looks like the underlying complaint might be wholly unreasonable. And Baldoni’s actions were reacting against her undermining him, not the complaint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BL and JB are both so messy. I’m embarrassed for them that this is all being fought so publicly. Neither of them come off as very sympathetic to me. They need to go do private mediation and take a break from the spotlight.

She was the one who made it messy …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BL and JB are both so messy. I’m embarrassed for them that this is all being fought so publicly. Neither of them come off as very sympathetic to me. They need to go do private mediation and take a break from the spotlight.

Nah. She went to the NYT. He’s going to wind up humiliating Lively and Reynolds, is my guess — and the twist is this would never have crossed Baldoni’s mind but for their attacks. Oh well!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Also, I think that based on Baldoni’s obsequiousness during the filming (He rolled over for her during the filming to avoid antagonizing her), Blake thought he would cower under threats and she would come out on top. Just because someone is deferential at the workplace in order to achieve their aims, does not mean they are fools who won’t fight back when you have them in a corner.

Isn't it a problem that he "rolled over" for her during filming though? It seems like he really mishandled his position during filming and that goes to her allegation that the set was unprofessionally run.

Being unprofessional isn't illegal and if he was unprofessional by showing too much deference, that hurts her claims overall.

Yeah, I don’t get how he was too accommodating and differential and also sexually harassed her.

My perception of the footage that has been released is that he is not accommodating or deferential, but he communicated poorly and was not direct or authoritative. It's not like he just lets her change the scene so they are talking the whole time -- he doesn't actually engage with her the way she's proposing. He just kind of ignores her suggestions and then argues with her and then goes ahead doing it his way with all the nuzzling/kissing (which only he does).

He just seems like a bad communicator and that will give rise to misunderstandings.

But not sexual harassment. Also, why didn’t she speak up. She never once said she was uncomfortable. Communication works both ways.

She says she has documentation of her raising these issues on several occasions prior to the break in filming during the strike, and then the January meeting where she says these issues were raised and Baldoni and Heath agreed to correct their behavior.

We'll see if the evidence backs that up but she is claiming she raised concerns about feeling uncomfortable on the set and wanting an IC present in numerous occasions.

This was shot in May 2023. But my point is that she didn’t raise any objections in this 10 minute footage. He may not have been communicating great, but she doesn’t seem to be either. The burden should be on both of them to communicate. Also, he laid out what he wanted in the scene. She laid out why she thought it would be more romantic to have them talking, and it seems like they met in the middle. With some moments of them not talking and some moments of them talking. It seems like they both communicated what they wanted if she felt differently, she really needed to speak up.

She did speak up when he said "it smells good." She immediately straightens up and tells him she was talking about her body makeup. It's very clear in context that she did not like what he said and felt it crossed a line.

Saying someone smells good crosses a line and is sexual harassment? lol. This is beyond outlandish. You all are not real people. This is all absurd.

It’s either a troll or Blake pr. No real person could be this illogical, and also committed to posting endlessly on this thread. It doesn’t matter, in the real world, Blake’s case is toast and everyone knows it. Really curious how long it takes The NY Times to hit the escape hatch. And I think it will be a long long time before they publish another story about sexual harassment. We can thank Blake for that.

NP. Way to shift the goal posts. PP says she should have spoken up, so someone points out that she did... now it's "that alone is SH, you must be a troll!" No. PP was pointing out that she did speak up, making it clear she was uncomfortable. If this kind of interaction happened once, it would 100% not be SH. If over and over again he did this and every time she tried to put a stop to it? Of course it would be. Note that I'm not saying that happened, because I have no idea. But my take on this scene is that Blake is clearly uncomfortable from the get go, constantly tries to ramp down the physical/sexual parts of the scene and, when he oversteps line, pushes back. I can absolutely see how your boss doing this repeatedly would create a hostile environment.

Exactly. No one, including Blake Lively, is claiming that Baldoni's behavior in this scene constitutes "harassment."

Her complaint alleges that there were a series of unprofessional, boundary violating behaviors that led Lively to request Baldoni and Wayfarer to agree to a code of conduct before she returned to the set post strike. They did agree, and she returned to the set. Separately, Baldoni hired a PR agency during promotion of the movie to astroturf online message boards and fan sites with negative info about Lively, which she claims is retaliation for her complaining during filming about his behavior.

You can't disprove her entire cause of action by showing a few minutes of footage and saying "see, it looks like she's enjoying it." Especially when to many people, it does NOT look like she's enjoying it, and the footage includes an exchange that is describe accurately in her complaint, in which she felt he crossed a line, and spoke up about it.

Her cause of action is “he crossed my boundary” and yet Baldoni’s team’s point by point refutation is nothing?

“Many people” think she’s “NOT” enjoying it?

Hmmm.

The problem is in one of the examples, the dance scene, she is laughing and smiling at him and does not appear upset about the "boundaries." She came up with that objection later. Unfortunately for her the footage shows the opposite of what she claims. I can't wait to see what else Baldoni releases.

In the footage he released, he makes the "it smells good" comment and you can see her visibly bothered by it, plus she says something to that effect. That's the "objection" you are talking about and it absolutely like she made it in real time as it happened, not later.

I took the laughing/smiling she does in the scene as to be largely her acting the scene for the camera. The camera is rolling the entire time she's on screen, so I don't think you can assume she's laughing or smiling because she genuinely likes him or his having a good time. It's her job in that moment to look like she's falling in love with him.

I still don't know that this would constitute harassment, it depends on what else happened. But the footage actually does show almost exactly what she describes in her complaint when she talks about this scene.

I personally think it's sketchy to be releasing this stuff piecemeal like this. I also think the judge is going to shut it down pretty quick because it's very obvious Baldoni's attorney is trying to use this stuff to sway public opinion (and taint the jury pool).

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Also, I think that based on Baldoni’s obsequiousness during the filming (He rolled over for her during the filming to avoid antagonizing her), Blake thought he would cower under threats and she would come out on top. Just because someone is deferential at the workplace in order to achieve their aims, does not mean they are fools who won’t fight back when you have them in a corner.

Isn't it a problem that he "rolled over" for her during filming though? It seems like he really mishandled his position during filming and that goes to her allegation that the set was unprofessionally run.

Being unprofessional isn't illegal and if he was unprofessional by showing too much deference, that hurts her claims overall.

Yeah, I don’t get how he was too accommodating and differential and also sexually harassed her.

My perception of the footage that has been released is that he is not accommodating or deferential, but he communicated poorly and was not direct or authoritative. It's not like he just lets her change the scene so they are talking the whole time -- he doesn't actually engage with her the way she's proposing. He just kind of ignores her suggestions and then argues with her and then goes ahead doing it his way with all the nuzzling/kissing (which only he does).

He just seems like a bad communicator and that will give rise to misunderstandings.

But not sexual harassment. Also, why didn’t she speak up. She never once said she was uncomfortable. Communication works both ways.

She says she has documentation of her raising these issues on several occasions prior to the break in filming during the strike, and then the January meeting where she says these issues were raised and Baldoni and Heath agreed to correct their behavior.

We'll see if the evidence backs that up but she is claiming she raised concerns about feeling uncomfortable on the set and wanting an IC present in numerous occasions.

This was shot in May 2023. But my point is that she didn’t raise any objections in this 10 minute footage. He may not have been communicating great, but she doesn’t seem to be either. The burden should be on both of them to communicate. Also, he laid out what he wanted in the scene. She laid out why she thought it would be more romantic to have them talking, and it seems like they met in the middle. With some moments of them not talking and some moments of them talking. It seems like they both communicated what they wanted if she felt differently, she really needed to speak up.

She did speak up when he said "it smells good." She immediately straightens up and tells him she was talking about her body makeup. It's very clear in context that she did not like what he said and felt it crossed a line.

Saying someone smells good crosses a line and is sexual harassment? lol. This is beyond outlandish. You all are not real people. This is all absurd.

It’s either a troll or Blake pr. No real person could be this illogical, and also committed to posting endlessly on this thread. It doesn’t matter, in the real world, Blake’s case is toast and everyone knows it. Really curious how long it takes The NY Times to hit the escape hatch. And I think it will be a long long time before they publish another story about sexual harassment. We can thank Blake for that.

NP. Way to shift the goal posts. PP says she should have spoken up, so someone points out that she did... now it's "that alone is SH, you must be a troll!" No. PP was pointing out that she did speak up, making it clear she was uncomfortable. If this kind of interaction happened once, it would 100% not be SH. If over and over again he did this and every time she tried to put a stop to it? Of course it would be. Note that I'm not saying that happened, because I have no idea. But my take on this scene is that Blake is clearly uncomfortable from the get go, constantly tries to ramp down the physical/sexual parts of the scene and, when he oversteps line, pushes back. I can absolutely see how your boss doing this repeatedly would create a hostile environment.

Exactly. No one, including Blake Lively, is claiming that Baldoni's behavior in this scene constitutes "harassment."

Her complaint alleges that there were a series of unprofessional, boundary violating behaviors that led Lively to request Baldoni and Wayfarer to agree to a code of conduct before she returned to the set post strike. They did agree, and she returned to the set. Separately, Baldoni hired a PR agency during promotion of the movie to astroturf online message boards and fan sites with negative info about Lively, which she claims is retaliation for her complaining during filming about his behavior.

You can't disprove her entire cause of action by showing a few minutes of footage and saying "see, it looks like she's enjoying it." Especially when to many people, it does NOT look like she's enjoying it, and the footage includes an exchange that is describe accurately in her complaint, in which she felt he crossed a line, and spoke up about it.

Her cause of action is “he crossed my boundary” and yet Baldoni’s team’s point by point refutation is nothing?

“Many people” think she’s “NOT” enjoying it?

Hmmm.

The problem is in one of the examples, the dance scene, she is laughing and smiling at him and does not appear upset about the "boundaries." She came up with that objection later. Unfortunately for her the footage shows the opposite of what she claims. I can't wait to see what else Baldoni releases.

In the footage he released, he makes the "it smells good" comment and you can see her visibly bothered by it, plus she says something to that effect. That's the "objection" you are talking about and it absolutely like she made it in real time as it happened, not later.

I took the laughing/smiling she does in the scene as to be largely her acting the scene for the camera. The camera is rolling the entire time she's on screen, so I don't think you can assume she's laughing or smiling because she genuinely likes him or his having a good time. It's her job in that moment to look like she's falling in love with him.

I still don't know that this would constitute harassment, it depends on what else happened. But the footage actually does show almost exactly what she describes in her complaint when she talks about this scene.

I personally think it's sketchy to be releasing this stuff piecemeal like this. I also think the judge is going to shut it down pretty quick because it's very obvious Baldoni's attorney is trying to use this stuff to sway public opinion (and taint the jury pool).

he’s allowed to sway public opinion …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BL and JB are both so messy. I’m embarrassed for them that this is all being fought so publicly. Neither of them come off as very sympathetic to me. They need to go do private mediation and take a break from the spotlight.

Nah. She went to the NYT. He’s going to wind up humiliating Lively and Reynolds, is my guess — and the twist is this would never have crossed Baldoni’s mind but for their attacks. Oh well!

He hired a PR firm to astroturf negative stuff about her online long before that NYT piece came out. There may be questions about whether his PR attack last summer was successful or whether her own behavior undermined her so much that they didn't need to proceed with the PR. But the texts show that he hired them to trash her online. So, uh, it crossed his mind.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Also, I think that based on Baldoni’s obsequiousness during the filming (He rolled over for her during the filming to avoid antagonizing her), Blake thought he would cower under threats and she would come out on top. Just because someone is deferential at the workplace in order to achieve their aims, does not mean they are fools who won’t fight back when you have them in a corner.

Isn't it a problem that he "rolled over" for her during filming though? It seems like he really mishandled his position during filming and that goes to her allegation that the set was unprofessionally run.

Being unprofessional isn't illegal and if he was unprofessional by showing too much deference, that hurts her claims overall.

Yeah, I don’t get how he was too accommodating and differential and also sexually harassed her.

My perception of the footage that has been released is that he is not accommodating or deferential, but he communicated poorly and was not direct or authoritative. It's not like he just lets her change the scene so they are talking the whole time -- he doesn't actually engage with her the way she's proposing. He just kind of ignores her suggestions and then argues with her and then goes ahead doing it his way with all the nuzzling/kissing (which only he does).

He just seems like a bad communicator and that will give rise to misunderstandings.

But not sexual harassment. Also, why didn’t she speak up. She never once said she was uncomfortable. Communication works both ways.

She says she has documentation of her raising these issues on several occasions prior to the break in filming during the strike, and then the January meeting where she says these issues were raised and Baldoni and Heath agreed to correct their behavior.

We'll see if the evidence backs that up but she is claiming she raised concerns about feeling uncomfortable on the set and wanting an IC present in numerous occasions.

This was shot in May 2023. But my point is that she didn’t raise any objections in this 10 minute footage. He may not have been communicating great, but she doesn’t seem to be either. The burden should be on both of them to communicate. Also, he laid out what he wanted in the scene. She laid out why she thought it would be more romantic to have them talking, and it seems like they met in the middle. With some moments of them not talking and some moments of them talking. It seems like they both communicated what they wanted if she felt differently, she really needed to speak up.

She did speak up when he said "it smells good." She immediately straightens up and tells him she was talking about her body makeup. It's very clear in context that she did not like what he said and felt it crossed a line.

Saying someone smells good crosses a line and is sexual harassment? lol. This is beyond outlandish. You all are not real people. This is all absurd.

It’s either a troll or Blake pr. No real person could be this illogical, and also committed to posting endlessly on this thread. It doesn’t matter, in the real world, Blake’s case is toast and everyone knows it. Really curious how long it takes The NY Times to hit the escape hatch. And I think it will be a long long time before they publish another story about sexual harassment. We can thank Blake for that.

NP. Way to shift the goal posts. PP says she should have spoken up, so someone points out that she did... now it's "that alone is SH, you must be a troll!" No. PP was pointing out that she did speak up, making it clear she was uncomfortable. If this kind of interaction happened once, it would 100% not be SH. If over and over again he did this and every time she tried to put a stop to it? Of course it would be. Note that I'm not saying that happened, because I have no idea. But my take on this scene is that Blake is clearly uncomfortable from the get go, constantly tries to ramp down the physical/sexual parts of the scene and, when he oversteps line, pushes back. I can absolutely see how your boss doing this repeatedly would create a hostile environment.

Exactly. No one, including Blake Lively, is claiming that Baldoni's behavior in this scene constitutes "harassment."

Her complaint alleges that there were a series of unprofessional, boundary violating behaviors that led Lively to request Baldoni and Wayfarer to agree to a code of conduct before she returned to the set post strike. They did agree, and she returned to the set. Separately, Baldoni hired a PR agency during promotion of the movie to astroturf online message boards and fan sites with negative info about Lively, which she claims is retaliation for her complaining during filming about his behavior.

You can't disprove her entire cause of action by showing a few minutes of footage and saying "see, it looks like she's enjoying it." Especially when to many people, it does NOT look like she's enjoying it, and the footage includes an exchange that is describe accurately in her complaint, in which she felt he crossed a line, and spoke up about it.

Her cause of action is “he crossed my boundary” and yet Baldoni’s team’s point by point refutation is nothing?

“Many people” think she’s “NOT” enjoying it?

Hmmm.

The problem is in one of the examples, the dance scene, she is laughing and smiling at him and does not appear upset about the "boundaries." She came up with that objection later. Unfortunately for her the footage shows the opposite of what she claims. I can't wait to see what else Baldoni releases.

In the footage he released, he makes the "it smells good" comment and you can see her visibly bothered by it, plus she says something to that effect. That's the "objection" you are talking about and it absolutely like she made it in real time as it happened, not later.

I took the laughing/smiling she does in the scene as to be largely her acting the scene for the camera. The camera is rolling the entire time she's on screen, so I don't think you can assume she's laughing or smiling because she genuinely likes him or his having a good time. It's her job in that moment to look like she's falling in love with him.

I still don't know that this would constitute harassment, it depends on what else happened. But the footage actually does show almost exactly what she describes in her complaint when she talks about this scene.

I personally think it's sketchy to be releasing this stuff piecemeal like this. I also think the judge is going to shut it down pretty quick because it's very obvious Baldoni's attorney is trying to use this stuff to sway public opinion (and taint the jury pool).

he’s allowed to sway public opinion …

Not if they are engaged in ongoing litigation and the goal is to try and win the case in the press so that the other side never gets a fair shake in court. Judges don't like it when you do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BL and JB are both so messy. I’m embarrassed for them that this is all being fought so publicly. Neither of them come off as very sympathetic to me. They need to go do private mediation and take a break from the spotlight.

She was the one who made it messy …

He is also messy AF. I agree with the PP -- they should be handling this in private mediation. They are both major drama queens and keep escalating it on both sides.

They both strike me as people who are incapable of admitting when they are wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BL and JB are both so messy. I’m embarrassed for them that this is all being fought so publicly. Neither of them come off as very sympathetic to me. They need to go do private mediation and take a break from the spotlight.

Nah. She went to the NYT. He’s going to wind up humiliating Lively and Reynolds, is my guess — and the twist is this would never have crossed Baldoni’s mind but for their attacks. Oh well!

This. No one really knew him before, sure some did from the tv show and his podcast, but he is not well known. Blake and Ryan will be humiliated and the hit to their egos will be devastating for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BL and JB are both so messy. I’m embarrassed for them that this is all being fought so publicly. Neither of them come off as very sympathetic to me. They need to go do private mediation and take a break from the spotlight.

Nah. She went to the NYT. He’s going to wind up humiliating Lively and Reynolds, is my guess — and the twist is this would never have crossed Baldoni’s mind but for their attacks. Oh well!

This. No one really knew him before, sure some did from the tv show and his podcast, but he is not well known. Blake and Ryan will be humiliated and the hit to their egos will be devastating for them.

I'm curious how people think they are going to be humiliated or destroyed or whatever.

Ryan, in particular, is going to be totally unscathed. At worst, he will be seen as sticking up for his wife. I've seen this before, actually, with an overzealous husband going after someone he thought wronged his wife -- people eat it up. It will play right into Ryan's existing public persona. I think he's in zero danger.

With Lively I'll be curious how this whole thing impacts the release of A Simple Favor 2. It doesn't have a release date yet and they claim that fact is unrelated to what's going on with Lively in the press but I doubt they are ignoring. But I think if we ultimately see Lively palling around with Anna Kendrick at the premiere of that movie, she'll probably escape pretty unimpacted. Who knows, maybe interest in this thing with Baldoni will boost interest in that movie -- It Ends With Us probably benefited from the controversy a bit. Even if Lively winds up being someone people "love to hate," it could work out for her.

I think Baldoni has way more to lose than anyone else involved here. Like you said, he was a no one before this. If I had to bet, he'll wind up defined by this controversy.

Regardless of the truth, I think he probably should have played along and gotten through it. Then he'd just be that guy who was in that one movie with Blake Lively and hey, didn't he direct it too? That would be a much better situation for him.